Study On Regurating Standard Terms And Protecting Rights And Interests Of Consumers

Since the concept of "standard term" appears in the "contract law" of 1999, many domestic scholars have carried out studies on it, and because of media coverage, the public concerning about the standard term has also been increasing. This paper starts from the origination and nature of the standard term, analyzing the impact on consumer rights, social justice and economic health, and then discusses the domestic and foreign legislative, executive and judicial limits on standard terms; finally the paper suggests some proposals on standard term regulation and consumer protection from the prospect of existing legal system and social reality, in the hope of helping standard term's research and realization of social equity.This paper is divided into introduction, body and conclusion of three parts. Body includes four parts:The first part is an overview of the standard term, which examines the historical origin of the standard term, and defines its relevance with monopolistic industry by analyzing its process of emergence and development. This part clarifies the damaging nature of the standard term on interests of consumers, and then introduces a new understanding of the characteristics of standard term.The second part is a survey of the application of standard term in real economic life, which gives a detailed analysis of the contents and unfair factors included in standard terms and its actual damages brought to the interests of consumers, in seven selected industries with monopolistic status. The third part examines the situations and methods of domestic and foreign regulations of standard terms, in order to learn the foreign experiences from the legislative level, the administrative level and judicial level, and then research the situations of domestic legislation, administrative supervision and Judicial relief from the historical and practical aspects.The fourth part makes some proposals on regulating standard terms, including the proposals on the usage of public power, consumer behaviors and media monitoring power.Through the research of standard term and consumer interests protection, the paper finally gets to the conclusion that:because of historical and institutional reasons, there are obviously deficiencies of standard terms 'regulations in terms of legislative, executive, judicial, and consumer self-protection. It is proposed to modifying the existing law, reforming the economic system, limiting department legislative power and industry self-protection, strengthening administrative supervision and judicial relief efforts, as well as enhancing consumers' self-protection awareness and ability, and exerting the media monitoring efforts, so as to achieving the greatest social fairness and justice.